Driving is nothing like Go-Karting!

Our walk yesterday was very enjoyable. It was a circular walk through the Changue Forest near Barr, which is about fifteen miles south west of Ayr. Bob brought Heidi, Andy and Gwen in his car, and James and I brought Ally and Cat. The path was very pretty and we walked through woods of mainly spruce and larch trees; there were also some oak, ash and birch. But there was much more to look at and enjoy than on many more enclosed forest walks, because this one has a very attractive open aspect. As we continued up the gentle slope towards the Howe of Laggan, we had fantastic views of the Polmaddie hills including the splendidly named Haggis Hill, with impressively steep valleys in between, with burns rushing and winding down through them. There was a lot of tree felling going on in the forest; we saw one of the felling machines as it speedily cut down trees, stripped them of their branches and cut up the trunks into lengths. For me, one of the highlights was the dappled light as the sun shone through a grove of tall birch trees, it was breathtaking. As we neared the end of our walk, we came across "Kirstie's Cairn", a rather sad little memorial which was raised by the friends of a young shepherd boy called Christopher McTaggart (Kirstie to his friends and family) who tragically froze to death after he set out in a raging blizzard in January 1913 to care for his sheep.
The walk was so pleasant that it was hard to believe that we had walked for eight miles; we then all repaired to the picturesque King's Arms Hotel in Barr for some much deserved refreshments before heading home.
Today David had his first driving lesson! It was a six hour lesson (because he is doing an intensive driving course this week) and he staggered in exhausted at the end of it! His instructor looked pretty worn out too. David said disappointedly that "Driving is nothing like go-karting" and seemed to have found changing gears to be a challenge. And junctions. He accused me of driving differently than the driving instructor, thus giving him wrong impression of what to do. And he muttered angrily that his whole holiday week is taken up with driving lessons - something that he had seen as a good thing up until now! Oh well, things can only get better!